Rep. Troy Heinert (D-26A/Mission) brings us House Bill 1193, a sensible effort to protect South Dakotans from the dangers of in situ leach uranium mining. Hoping to reverse the Legislature's history of handing out favors to potential polluters, Rep. Heinert wants to make companies like Powertech (today's stock price: eight cents!) meet a stronger burden of proof that their operations won't harm our water supplies.
HB 1193 adds three important requirements to in situ leach mining permits and projects:
- As part of the permit process, in situ leach uranium mining companies must show that their wastewater won't leak into other aquifers.
- Such mining companies must show their water restoration technology works, not just on paper, but in practice.
- When they're done mining, operators of in situ leach mines must restore groundwater to at least the quality it had before mining... something in situ leach uranium miners have had a really hard time doing.
We shouldn't be surprised that Heinert and fellow Democrats (Reps. Hawks, Killer, Parsley, Peterson, Schrempp, Tyler, and Senator Welke) are leading to the charge to protect South Dakotans from polluting corporate exploiters. Joining them are Republican Reps. Scott Craig (whose Black Hills constituents are keenly interested in protecting their drinking water) and Charlie Hoffman (who enjoys a good drink, but not one that glows).
Rep. Hoffman chairs the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, which gets first crack at HB 1193. The bill isn't on an agenda yet, but contact those committee members now to tell them to stand up for sensible regulation and clean water.
What other industry is held to such standards ? None
Item # 3 is meant to insure the stoppage of this project . If the uranium is removed it is impossible to return that water to pre mining quality because the uranium will be greatly reduced .
Trusting DENR to verify anything except on which side its bread is buttered makes any changes to South Dakota codified law is perfunctory.
http://www.powderriverbasin.org/assets/Uploads/files/rnpow/ISL-information-and-current-Crook-County-Status-10-09.pdf
According to this article,the only chance of restoring water to its former state is if the standards are lowered for water.
I've seen situations where you couldn't run community water through your project without touching it and have it meet standards coming out.
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Where I challenge Verchio, oxygen is an oxidizer and the great quantity of oxygenated water reacting to all the other chemicals in the region adding or detracting creates unknown side affects with unknown time life.
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Yellowcake itself will outlast Verchio and myself by more than a few thousand years.
Rep. Verchio, I think we would impose a burden of proof like this on any business that threatened to ruin the water supply of the Black Hills and put lots of ranchers, tour guides, hoteliers, and other hardworking South Dakotans out of business, not to mention in the hospital or an early grave.
Study of in situ sites in Texas shows after being treated,water in 68% of tested sites were higher than MCL levels for uranium. The water in Texas used for this type of mining is already classified as not suitable for humans and livestock.
Background ground water quality is a benchmark used in other forms of mining and in permitting of landfills and other waste disposal sites. Generally, background ground water quality must be met at the boundary of the permitted mine site. This provides for a zone of attenuation for a period of years until hydrogeology stabilizes.
The problem has been ISL mining has proven to be much more difficult than other sorts of mines to stabilize after mining.
Rep. Verchio could suggest an amendment that says the uranium in solution in groundwater must be less than what pertained as background, but I suspect that won't be something he wants to do.
Good point on the uranium baseline, Rep. Verchio ...
BUT:
If you read the bill thoroughly, including the bits and pieces of established SDCL that it refers to, you'll see that this bill is designed to work with regulations already on the books that empower the SD DENR to designate both testing methods and which parameters shall be utilized in the baseline assessment (and which won't)[SDCL § 45-6B-7(9)].
Please — seriously, PLEASE — re-read Section 2 of HB1193, lines 5-11, and then reference SDCL § 45-6B-7(9) — this is more than technically your job.
Correct me if I'm wrong, of course.
Make no mistake: DENR will do what SDGOP tells it to do.
The old-timers still talk about how wells dried up all over the Hills when Ellsworth began pumping. The hydrology of the region is already so stressed such that if Powertech is allowed to tap the Inyan Kara water will be robbed from somewhere else to fill the void.
And I was always under the assumption that state and national legislators were elected to protect the rights of citizens and our country's resources.
But, what can you expect from the co-author of Putin's Law.